My Dinosaur ANNOTATION
Every night a little girl waits by her window for her friend the dinosaur, and when he comes, they play in the woods all night until the sun comes up.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Bathed in moonlight and magic, Weatherby's first solo effort (he illustrated Jim Murphy's Dinosaur for a Day and The Last Dinosaur) effectively blends fantasy and realism in an original tale of a girl's nocturnal adventures with her unusual playmate. The story generates an instant appeal with its unlikely pairing of a diminutive, pink-nightgown-clad towhead and a benign creature so enormous it only appears once in its entirety (readers mostly glimpse just the tip of a tail, an eye, a head and neck, and so on). Weatherby amplifies the allure with his fetching cast of extras: fantastical fish, sleepy-eyed owls, a family of plump little raccoons who watch the activity from a nearby branch. Impressionistic acrylics overlayed with metallic paints yield interesting visual textures, both velvety in their softness and marble-like in their surface patterns. The setting-a mist-dappled forest-further enhances the bewitched mood, and when the girl comes down to breakfast the following morning with leaves in her hair, readers will want to believe that something extraordinary truly has transpired in this enchanted evening escapade. Ages 3-7. (Mar.)
School Library Journal
PreS-Gr 2A murky, moonlit forest is explored by a small girl riding atop a huge dinosaur in this nighttime odyssey sure to attract a wide audience of young dreamers. The mottled green dinosaur dominates the double-page views as the two friends play hide-and-seek, greet forest animals, drink at the river, swim, stretch high above the treetops, and finally return home at daybreak. Weatherby's paintings in acrylics and suffused metallics are dreamy and evocative. Opening and closing portraits of the child narrator have a rosy realism that begins to blur as she swings fearlessly from the dinosaur's neck and tail. The forest animals are realistic; the figure of the dinosaur is softer, but just as striking as the statuesque creatures the illustrator provided for Jim Murphy's The Last Dinosaur (1988) and Dinosaur for a Day (1992, both Scholastic). His spare, somewhat wooden text sketches the night's events, ending with a nice tongue-in-cheek exchange in the new day: "At breakfast, I yawn. `How did you get leaves in your hair?' my mother asks me. `I played with my dinosaur last night,' I tell her. `That's nice,' she says." This romanticized fantasy is a satisfying encounter with the ever popular prehistoric giant.Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston
Kirkus Reviews
A little girl peers from her window in the night, waiting for her dinosaur to appear. She nips outside, whistles, and a green-mottled megacreature materializes. They cavort until first light—visiting with the denizens of the night, taking a moonlit dip, the girl reaching for the stars. She is dropped off at home for a few winks; at breakfast her mother wants to know why she has leaves in her hair. " `I played with my dinosaur last night,' I tell her. `That's nice,' she says." Weatherby (illustrator of Jim Murphy's The Last Dinosaur, 1988, not reviewed) tells the story dreamily, with a near-glut of tenderness and warmth: "My dinosaur never scares the night creatures. They like him," and, from her farewell song, "Good night, my dinosaur. Sleep tight, my dinosaur. Soon I'll see you again, my very best friend." Younger children will find plenty of reassurance here—there is nothing to fear from the night or large beasts—but both text and illustrations are spun from sugar and far too fragile for the sharp skepticism and dinosaur expertise of the older end of the picture-book set.
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